Watch ‘Sita Sings the Blues’: The Story of Ramayana, As Satirical Animated Musical

While we haven’t seen the unmitigated flamboyance of a Bollywood production influence on American film, yet, India’s culture and rich traditions surely have captured many a creative mind, not the least in which amounted to 8 Oscar wins a couple weekends ago. Nina Paley is one such creat-or who was so moved by one of the most culturally profound Indian epics, Ramayana, she decided to re-imagine it as a digitally animated musical, infused with her own comically tragic story of breakup-by-email, against the aural backdrop of Annette Hanshaw‘s 20’s jazz stylings. Er, we hear it’s actually quite mesmerizing. And tragic, apparently – the image below was named ‘NinaDanSexless’ by Nina herself.

The satire made the festival rounds last year, but a proponent of “free culture” Nina Paley decided to follow her gut and allow everyone to enjoy the movie FREE – an idea that is both honorable and perhaps in her best interest considering the story happens to be thousands of years old “public domain” to begin with, and is revered as an integral part of Hindusim. Not to mention India’s latest drive to harness their sacred texts, and save them from pirates.